A common means to determine the location of a device is to use a satellite position system (SPS), such as the well-known Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) system or Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), which employ a number of satellites that are in orbit around the Earth. Position measurements using SPS are based on measurements of propagation delay times of SPS signals broadcast from a number of orbiting satellites to an SPS receiver. Once the SPS receiver has measured the signal propagation delays for each satellite, the range to each satellite can be determined and precise navigation information including 3-dimensional position, velocity and time of day of the SPS receiver can then be determined using the measured ranges and the known locations of the satellites.
One of the first and most difficult steps in using a map is physically orienting oneself in the correct direction. Incorrect orientation results in initiating navigation in the wrong direction. While electronic mapping systems using SPS, for example, are useful in determining one's current location, users often have difficulty understanding the maps relevance to the user's orientation.
Electronic mapping systems currently aid orientation by aligning the map view with the direction that the user is facing, sometimes referred to as a heading-up view. With a heading-up view, the displayed map is rotated so that the user's direction or heading is always shown as upwards in the display, as opposed to the more conventional North-up view in which North is shown as upwards in the display. A heading-up view, however, requires the user to translate between the elements shown on the map (top view) and the elements in front of them (front view), which can difficult because the shapes of the elements do not generally match clearly. For example, the front face of a building as seen by the viewer may be considerably different than the shape of the building in top view, which may make identification difficult. Another orientation aid sometimes used, for example, when a North-up view is used, may be referred to as a pie-slice orientation element, which illustrates the likely view angle of the user by displaying a wedge in the direction that the device is facing. Similar to the heading-up view, however, users sometimes find it difficult to understand the relevance of the pie-slice orientation element to the user's actual view as it requires that the user to translate between the elements shown on the map (top view) and the elements in front of them (front view).
Orienting yourself in a camera view with augmented reality, however, is much easier as the camera shows exactly what the user is pointing at. Augmented reality combines real-world imagery with computer generated data, such as graphics or textual information. The augmented reality overlays can emphasize the user's actual target or target direction. Currently there is no way of leveraging the ease of orientation in the augmented reality camera view with the map view.